A picture of an Iranian Mahan Air passenger plane landing at Hodeidah Airport in Yemen. Foreign media revealed that the U.S. Treasury Department has recently put pressure on more than 50 countries to completely cut off aviation and banking connections with Iran in the Middle East and Europe. Tehran is facing a suffocating blockade of external commercial channels. (Reuters photo)
The U.S. Trump administration's economic blockade against Iran has been comprehensively upgraded, from simply imposing sanctions on Iran to putting pressure on more than 50 countries around the world to cut off commercial links. Senior officials of the U.S. Treasury Department have recently visited the Middle East and Europe intensively, asking Iran's neighboring trading partners to make a choice between cooperating with U.S. sanctions or continuing to interact with Tehran. The regional aviation and banking channels that Iran has relied on for many years are being dismantled by the U.S. one by one.
The Wall Street Journal exclusively reported on the 25th that Jonathan Burke, the U.S. Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for counter-terrorism financing, embarked on an intensive two-week trip this month, visiting Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and the United Kingdom to deliver a tough message to countries that Washington will strictly enforce secondary sanctions: "Do you want to do business with Tehran or do you want to do business with Washington?" The report revealed that the U.S. has recently contacted more than 50 countries in this regard.
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The civil aviation sector bears the brunt. After strong negotiations from the United States, Oman, which has served as a mediating bridge between the West and Tehran for many years, has completely banned the entry of all Iranian airline flights; Turkey has also simultaneously canceled the operations of Mahan Air, which is considered to be closely related to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards; neighboring countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia have also followed suit and blocked Iran's air channels to surrounding areas.
Overseas branch licenses revoked, financial network finally in crisis
Financial pipelines are also locked. The UAE official has ordered a ban on the local branches of one of Iran's largest commercial banks, Bank Melli, from conducting any transactions involving Iran; Turkey has even directly revoked the business license of Iran's large private bank, Bank Mellat, essentially destroying Tehran's backdoor channel for settling international trade through neighboring countries.
The report analyzed that although Iran has long been excluded from the US dollar system, it has still been able to maintain basic trade with regional banks through routes from neighboring countries in the past few decades. Now the U.S. Treasury Department is directly putting pressure on these intermediary trading partners, forcing countries to withdraw licenses and cut off flights one after another for the sake of their own economic security. Iran's remaining commercial vessels are being completely blocked.
Although Mahan Air still maintains a small number of routes to China and Russia, the United States has also simultaneously imposed sanctions on companies in the two countries involving Iran. The last leg of Burke's trip was to London. The British government has stated that it will not extend the exemption for some Iranian banks in Europe. The National Bank of Iran's business license in London is expected to face a renewal battle next month.
Former U.S. Treasury Department official Matthew Levitt pointed out that this type of commercial containment will only have a suffocating effect if trading partners are convinced that the United States is determined to continue pursuing the fight.
